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As a lifelong Catholic who worked for my beloved church and in interfaith relations for 27 years, I have opinions about seeing an AI-generated image of the U.S. president dressed up as the pope.
I am fairly irreverent. I don’t run around using words like sacrilege or blasphemy or talk about religious persecution. The Catholic Church can be amusing. We get up, sit down, get up, kneel, make interesting gestures, sprinkle holy water on things, and do lots of other acts that may seem peculiar. People, including me, have laughed about these and other practices for generations. There are also legitimate reasons for criticism. This is not that.
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When the president of the United States, as well as the official White House social media, posts an image of himself as the pope, it is both a reminder of and a reinvigoration of our history of disrespect toward Catholicism in the U.S. that goes back to our beginning. The social-media posting was preceded by the president saying he was his own first choice to be elected pope and by a U.S. senator retweeting it and saying it was a great idea. Neither of these men are practicing Catholics.
Engaging in work that defends the dignity of the human person and uplifts the common good is an essential element of Catholicism, but that does not make our leadership a partisan political office. Although those endeavors can lead to blurred lines, equating them shows a profound lack of understanding of our doctrine and tremendous disrespect toward it by a highly educated, high-ranking, publicly elected official.
Since Easter, many friends and colleagues have offered their condolences to me personally. Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and agnostics all shared appreciation and deference for the pope, a leader they do not follow, because they respect his followers.
Reading online comments has revealed more. While people angry about the president’s post share their thoughts and wonder why Christians are not defending Catholics, commenters are saying they do not consider Catholics to be Christians, and some go so far as to say Catholics are the anti-Christ. I thought we had lost those ways of thinking long ago, but apparently not.
AI gives us opportunities to create many imaginative images. Public officials posting them on government accounts suggests, to borrow a Catholic term, an imprimatur of the image. As my parents used to say, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.
The line between legitimate, objective criticism and state-sponsored mockery has been crossed. That level of disrespect calls for a retraction, an apology, and some other repair. It is unlikely to be forthcoming. Understanding and respecting each other’s faith traditions might be considered DEI. Can we aspire to be better?
Patrice Critchley-Menor of Duluth is a lifelong Catholic who has worked with faith-based organizations including Chum, the Diocese of Duluth, the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the Minnesota Council of Churches, and the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition.
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